MY TEACHERS: JABBERWOCK & ROLL

 My 8th grade year, 1984-1985,  was spent at Kenosha's Washington Jr. High.  A building that now has gotten the knock down and rebuild treatment.  I suppose it was due in some way, as it was first constructed in 1920.  But still, that brick & mortar construction complete with neatly placed marble, and an early 80's addition that extended out into a vacant lot will be missed.  I will have to ask around if its twin building, McKinley Jr. High, is still in existence. 

Or was it Lance?  I think it was McKinley. 

Anyhoo.  In 1984-85, my English class (not grammar, but Lit in this case) was taught by Mrs. Bergquist.  I remember her to this day because she did this killer reading of Lewis Carrol's Jabberwocky, a genius piece from Through the Looking-glass, and what Alice Found There.  She read it with such enthusiasm and vigor.  She conjured a low throw-down to her voice that brought the words to magical life:

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

did gyre and gimble in the wabe"

It caught me off guard, pricked up me ears, and brought my attention to attention.  She finished the piece in the same enthusiasm, and did it incredible justice.  The other kids in my class were either irritated or laughing at her, but they obviously didn't get it.  I didn't care.  I thought it was amazing. 

I remember a day or two after, when a friend and I were gathering our Trapper Keepers and grocery-bag wrapped textbooks together, another kid gave his unfettered review of Mrs. Bergquist's reading.

"It's so stupid", he belched.  "It doesn't even make sense."  Then he began his classy impression of the work and performance:

"It was all goobly! and the jingly mobes

were gimblin' and gamblin' up my butt."

My friend and I of course erupted into laughter for a couple of reasons.

1.  The routine was admittedly hilarious.

2.  It was ridiculous.  He was doing exactly what he was mocking Carroll's piece for doing.  Creating nonsense words for the purpose of prose. 

Regardless, Mrs. Bergquist's selection also brought something out of my dusty past.  As a kid, we had these Walt Disney book and record items.  You know the ones.  You listen to the record and hear dialogue, narration, and music as you followed along in the book. 

 We had Peter & The Wolf, Bambi, Jungle Book, among others.   But the one that stuck out for me was Alice in Wonderland.  Terrific illustrations inside, including the one sparked by my English teacher's reading that day.  The Jabberwock himself.  With his pear-shaped Tweedledee & Tweedledum body shape and creepily flaming eyes.  This image was a memory Mrs. B. brought storming back.

That Jabberwocky reading is among the most strong, and definitely most positive moments that I remember happening during my time at Washington.  I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking "If that's the best you got, the rest of it must have been pretty grim." 

You wouldn't be wrong.  It’s scattered all over this blog.

As an addendum:  After my brief 16 month swing through Waco, TX, circa Fall of 1985 through January 1987, Tremper High was the school I attended upon my return to K-Town.   That's right.  The High School alma mater of one Mark Ruffalo.

Now, Tremper was intentional.  My parents gave me the option of which two Kenosha Unified School District High Schools I would wish to attend.  All of my siblings attended Bradford.  And most of the kids that I knew and who would possibly remember me would have gone there too.  But my bestie upon leaving Kenosha in October of 1985 was still my best friend thanks to letter-writing and phone calls. He was also a 10th grader at Tremper. So I made that my choice. 

Bad idea. 

He met me at the campus and shook my hand on a cold January day. He showed me what was what and where was there on the Tremper campus.  Then we headed back to his place to hang out and watch a little television. 

And I never heard from him again. 

He dodged me in the hallways, and never returned my calls.  Don't ask me why.  I have a couple theories, but it has been almost 40 years, I don’t dwell on it.  Anyway, on that day that we re-connected, I dropped into the office to talk to the staff.  While I was in there, I saw a familiar face.  None other than my favorite English teacher from Washington, Mrs. B!

That didn't go well either. 

Despite my enthusiastic introduction and subsequent discussion, she didn't remember me.  Even though at most, it had been two years since I saw her last and was under her tutelage.  I was truly disappointed.  I only attended Tremper one semester, as my folks and I picked up the tent by spring and were headed North. Luckily, Linda & Don, (mentors, both) allowed me to stay with them until June, so I didn't have to start up fresh again at another school with 7 weeks left in the school year.

I recently called Tremper.  For some reason, I had been unable to remember Mrs. Bergquist's name. I know I had it firmly in my mind a few months back but last week Friday when I intended to begin this odd trip down memory lane, it was gone.   

A very sweet individual named Amanda from the Tremper student services office went above and beyond helping me out.  She dug up the 1987-1988 yearbook and assisted with deducing the name.  Even if I weren't writing this piece, Amanda's assistance would have been therapeutic, because my former English teacher's name's dance upon the tip of my tongue was driving me to the brink of insanity. 

Now if I could only remember the name of the Tremper instructor who got me off the hook on 10th grade Algebra.

THOSE QUIET MOMENTS: EAGLE RIVER?!!: MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND, 1983

There's a family transition story that has a minor legendary flair to it.  When Ma and my stepdad (again, term used for differentiation alone) were first "a courtin'", as it were, they were leafing through some photo albums.  Their breezing of memories lit upon a sunblasted photo of me with a tiny little fish on a beginner rod that was taken in the late 70's.

Dad recognized the pier I was standing on in the Kodachrome snapshot and let my mom know the familiarity.

He'd been there as well.  As a matter of fact, he used to live up in that area and was close friends with the owner.  As were my folks. Kismet!  Sandy of Eagle River, WI knew both of the families very well that were about to become a dramatic Brady Bunch and nobody knew this. 

EAGLE RIVER?!

 

Well.  St. Germain to be more specific.  But then I wouldn't be able to tie Jon Cryer and Hot Shots into it.  A genius scene included at the top of this piece written by Wisconsin's own Jim Abrahams. 

Ma arranged for her to bring her new beau up to Eagle River for the "introduction" on Memorial Day Weekend, 1983.  Of course, I was 11, so I would have to come with my towhead and everything.  

Now I remember it being a chilly gray Memorial weekend in Wisconsin.  That can happen.  Many rainy Memorial Day weekends have their moments in my memories.  Cold and Damp arrived at many functions over the years, whether they were big family get togethers or camping trips.   It didn't stop the festivities, of course.  Like I said, this was Wisconsin.  Let the beer happen.  

And some cheese.

There was a night I was left with Sandy's teenage son while my parents hit a local "tavern".  Upper midwesterners know that term.  It's key language.  J showed me how he utilized nunchuku, his drum set (that I found out in retrospect that my parents almost bought for me), and he took me out to a bar and grill for burgers and fries.  I gotta say, and I mean it with all that is me, no place has better comfort food than an out of the way, on the verge of the woods, hole in the tree, rural Wisconsin pub. 

Towards the end of the evening, he decided to curl up in his room and watch the classic nuclear sub drama Gray Lady Down.  Not really interested at 11 in high tension military hardware dramas, I retreated to my constant companion, the comic book. 

Sometime in the middle of the night, very late, I heard a shriek from Sandy.  I was about to get out of bed to see what was going on in this nifty lakefront property in the wee hours of the morning.  It was about the time that my socks hit the carpet that I heard Sandy's trademark uproarious laughter.  Everything was alright.  I rubbed my eyes and rolled back into bed. 

Hours later, I had to use the facilities.  It was very early.  Pre-dawn.  I ambled down the steps, shuffled past the kitchen, turned the corner and headed toward the restroom just off of the living room.  It must have been the only non-bedroom john in the house, otherwise one wouldn't have needed to make that jaunt.  With my eyes half closed, I began to do what I came here to do, when something shuffled next to the toilet.  In the dim light, I couldn't tell what it was, and I was scared shitless. I stumbled backward into the sink, nearly urinating all over the place in the process. It struggled to stand and shuffled out toward me. 

A white-tail fawn. 

Everything was fine.  Sandy had a rep as a wildlife rehabilitator, and all that late night howling was her excitement at someone dropping off an orphaned whitetail deer baby.  She took him in, got him healthy, and I believe Henry, as he was named, became a regular on Sandy's gorgeous lakefront property.   As a sidenote, when we moved to 21st Street in Kenosha, it became evident the area was too small and confining for Ginger, the wonder dog, and my heart was broken as she was retired off to Sandy's place.  Where Ginger could run like she did all those years when we lived "out in the county".  She lived her best life with Sandy. 

I've got more to say about Ginger in the future.  She deserves much more than a series of supporting performance mentions.  I promise, I'll get there, girl.  You've earned that much.  It's just that I need to do right by you.   

Anyway, it was said Ginger and Henry became fast friends.  I wish I could have seen it.

There's not enough stories like that. 

BOUND TO THE PAST: SHOPPING AND READING WITH ME MA

I have vivid core memories (seem to be thinking on these a lot lately) of riding around with my Mom pre-kindergarten as she ran errands.  Hustling about town to my pediatrician (Kenosha legend, Dr. Heck), the dentist, Jo-Ann Fabrics, Kohl's grocery stores, K-Mart (they had that nifty grill in the center of the store, ya know!)

Anybody remember Cal's Roast Beef?  Kind of like an Arby's when they didn't have the meats yet?  I don't remember what it is I ate there on lunch visits, but I still have the little Looney Tunes comic book that came with one of those meals.  See the title image up above.  I still like to leaf through it. I still love the Looney Toons to this day, and that'll never change.  I grew up reading comics, and the combination of the two is something I think is pretty cool.  It's a keepsake, and bordering on heirloom, as far as I'm concerned. 

We ate silver dollar pancakes at the unfortunately named Sambo's.  Kind of like Denny's, but I don't remember K-town having a Denny's.  I remember the backlit pictures of the little boy and his tiger (reminiscent of Jungle Book) that adorned the wall above the window to the kitchen between menu items.  It eventually changed to the tiger only.  Click on the video below for some history. 

Anyway.

As I've mentioned before, Mom was a huge supporter of her kids reading because it would mean you were wicked smaht.  At a Kohl's grocery trip, shortly after Dad passed, she bought me one of those miniature staple-bound impulse buy biographies of John Wayne.  Was I a John Wayne fan?  No, I had seen one film of his before Dad died and it was the 1977. flick, The Shootist.  That stung shortly after seeing it, as Wayne played a gunslinger battling cancer in his last days, and the proximity of painful fact was not lost later.

I'd sit in the chill fall air with my back against the garage that Dad used to work on rebuilding the Ford (Ol' Abe), and the ancient tractor (Josephine) he had.  The shop was adjacent to the backyard, and had me facing west and reading the little book, learning what I could and enjoying the black and white photos of John Wayne, knowing nothing else about him. I felt like I needed to do that to draw a little closer to the old man. 

I knew Dad loved The Duke, and having that knowledge I carried the book around in my back pocket until it came apart.  A talisman, of sorts.  Mom shared stories of Dad's John Wayne fanhood with me.  Another one of those movie connections that I carry around. 

I guess The Duke was a putz in real life, but I didn't know that at age 9. 

I've already discussed Ma and the Paperback Exchange in the oft repeated Salem's Lot story.  Click on that if you've been living under a rock in terms of this blog and are unfamiliar. 

Ma bought me books at rummage sales all the time.  George Llanos' Sharks and H. David Baldridge's Shark Attack (250,000 copies in print!)  These were books that were obviously long-read and published during the post-Jaws mania.  I loved her for that shit.  Still have them.  Priceless little items.  There's a picture in the photo array in the center of Sharks that Frani thinks looks like the shark is smiling. 

She's not wrong.  I think that fish was posing.

I could list the books bought and read to me during my childhood (some I still have) such as the Road Runner little kid books like A Very Scary Lesson and Tumbleweed Trouble or the Winnie the Pooh ones, that I mention here, but I don't want to bore you.  How about the classic comic book paperback adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back that I kicked this series off with some years back, or the Batman book and record combo that I think I irritated her into buying for me.  Check it out below if you got 15 minutes.

 

I could be a pain in the ace.  Ma, I love you, and I'm categorically sorry.

Today, I just want to give props to my Ma for the sharing of the written word.  She was a reader in a major way and thank the lord she passed it on down.

THOSE QUIET MOMENTS: UNDER THE SKY

Photo by Gregoire Jeanneau on Unsplash

Sometimes when I take my dogs out at night to use the puppy restroom, I take a long gander up at the sky.

And I often fixate on Mars.

There's been talk by rocketheads for decades about an expedition there.

But what if something went wrong?  What if there was no return from the red planet?

Looking up, that grips my chest.  It takes my breath away a bit.  Even though I won't even remotely approach being in that situation, someone else may be.  I know that in the big picture of the galaxy, in the chessboard that is existence, Mars is in the square right next to us. 

A goddamn neighbor, really.

So that puts things in a darker perspective.  In and amongst the monstrous maelstrom that is the universe, we are all but an infinitely insignificant dot in a massive pointalism painting.  A grain of sand in a vast beach.

So, with the incredible size of our current political situation, peppered with the apocalyptic fuel of what despotism and authoritarianism may mean to all of us, including mutually assured destruction, it all seems so...

petty. 

It means nothing in the grand context of the universe.  

The wrong side of history?  Who will be reading that book in 1,000 years?  And as I'm still gazing up, maybe still at Mars, maybe a guest appearance by Jupiter, I realize it.

I'm terrified.

Horrified by my own insignificance.  

And when my thoughts go down that rabbit-hole, I don't have the slightest clue on how to dig my way out. 

Its been asked.  "What does all of this mean, this life?"

Does it matter?

You have figures crushing other people, inflicting hurt and loss for their own gain.  Dancing to an evil song with its notes written on the sheet music of the wrong side of history, indeed.  Taking us back instead of forward, pockets filling as they step on the throats of others, the helpless, the innocent, who they profit from regardless.  These people are elected to represent us, to benefit us.  And they take it to the bank.  A bank they can't take with them.

And if they were to do the unspeakable.  To hit the launch codes, to be the matching hand that is needed to hold the other key to make nuclear war possible, don't they see the stupidity?

Nothing gained. 

Just a flair on Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot that wouldn't be noticeable anywhere in the cosmos. In the event of the remote possibility that there were an intelligent and sentient being out there to witness it? It would be nothing more than what a sunstorm looks like to the rest of us. 

And we were lucky enough on this sphere to be given awareness, life; life that grew from the lowest levels.  Life that figured out the wheel, the boat, languages, the printing press, commerce, science, medicine, the telephone, television, and eventually?   

Religion and Politics.  Climate ignorance.

And we are capable of destroying thousands of years of human history, over what?  Profit?  Protection from accountability?  We have the first trillionaire, and he's not capable of even the most remote displays of philanthropy.   Somehow this country elected TWICE a guy with designs on nothing but self-improvement, and avoiding being held responsible.   We may be teetering on the brink.

I'm not even coming close to saying we are the only living beings out there....

But what if we were?  

We could wreck it all on account of a handful of overpampered despots who want to have it all.  We all fight, and we all lose due to the thinking of a few.

We are the stewards of that existence?  In all of that infinite eternity out there, we may fuck it all up because of human vanity and greed.

And the only record of us would be the recording thats headed out toward the heliosphere aboard Voyager 1 that stopped its time capsule before Reagan took office.  And really, that's appropriate.  It was the Reagan administration that started the spiral we're in now.  A slow rambling gait, that is now in a full-on sprint towards the cartoon character kakistocracy that is now in the driver's seat. Anyway, that space probe that is so far away, it can't be seen.  And it signal takes 22 hours to get here and a ridiculously powerful antenna to translate its information.

That's what I think about under the stars at night. 

VINYL DESTINATION: JOURNEY - "ESCAPE" hit 45 this week

 45 years ago this past week, Journey's Escape was released.  I have dipped frequently into the well lately for 'core' memories, and I guess I'm doing so again here today.  When we lived on Lichter Road in Kenosha County in the early 80's, I hung out in the basement a lot.  My sister Pee Wee's bedroom was off the "rec room", where I played quite often.  There are many singles I can recall either vibrating through the walls, or hearing at full blast (depending on if she had the door open or not).  Those include Eddie Money's Shakin, Cheap Trick's I Want You to Want Me, Flock Of Seagulls' I Ran, often on repeat.

But one probably had more miles on those vinyl grooves than the others and that was Journey's Who's Crying Now?.   This was a morose and melancholy ballad that often made me feel sad, which was probably the track's goal.  Combined with the time period I was living in and feelings I was dealing with, it was often haunting, and is one of those cuts that can take me back to that gut feeling if I hear it now. I've babbled about that before.

Who's Crying Now was wailing through the halls of our residence for days before Escape's release, as it was common 80's practice to drop a single before an album's release to build radio momentum and fluff potential record sales.  Realize now, one of the all-time great LP openers, Don't Stop Believin' starts off the record!  They went with Cryin' as the first single.  Weird.

All of that being said, Escape fits together with REO Speedwagon's Hi Infidelity as a quality power pop album from the same era without a weak song.  A real one-two punch.  Despite the fact that Don't Stop Believing and Open Arms both hail from Escape, my favorite track is Stone in Love.  I would call it a 10/10 song if not for that endless instrumental refrain that drains the cut of its rockin' momentum.  Never liked that about it,  but I can live with it.   

Now, Escape isn't wall-to-wall bangers like Hi Infidelity, but it is close.  At the same time, REO's album didn't spawn a damn video game either.  

THE SPECTRUM FILES: SAM NEILL

 

As a kid, I saw the final conflict on Spectrum. Sam Neill played Damien Thorne, the embodiment of evil in the finale of The Omen trilogy with such charisma and vileness that I was kind of scared of the actor for years to come.  I still shudder at the sentence: "Disciples of the Watch...."  The same effect was had on me by Powers Boothe due to his performance as Jim Jones in The Guyana Tragedy.  They both could come across with that smile and voice, and with the slightest of facial gymnastics become something else entirely, the beast.  It was obvious from that early appearance, Neill was a skilled thespian. 

 But Neill went on to play many great roles that made him endearing to me. These are just a few of many, but there are Jurassic Park, In the Mouth of Madness, and of course, one of my personal favorites, The Dish with Patrick Warburton. The Dish is of the great underrated films of the 90s. Neill's understated wisdom and warmth were the anchor to a motion picture that deserves re-evaluation. 

I’m so sad to see him go. even though he frightened me so intensely as Damien Thorne, which has him firmly locked in my core memories.  The change in my heart was so dramatic, that it’s worth noting here. It takes a special actor to be able to bridge that range so effectively and consistently. 

Rest in peace, Mr. Neill, you were a great actor and from what I’ve read, for all intents and purposes, a hell of a person too.  He told great stories with that Australian twang, and that fact is well noted.  It’s been just a short while since I woke to this sad news this morning, but I’ve already heard many testimonies of the quality of Sam’s nature.  He will be strongly missed. 

DVDs: THEY'RE ARCHIVES

 Photo by Myke Simon on Unsplash

It ain't no secret that I collect a movie every now and then.  

Its amazing to me how quickly we've gone from VHS to streaming.  I was late to DVD, just like I was to CD.  In the late 90's, when every one was going to disc, I was still hanging on to my tapes.   I eventually made the jump.  I'm no tech-geek.  I was perfectly happy with the picture and sound quality of the DVD. Call me a dweeb, but I didn't see the huge quality jump everyone else was talking about when blu-ray came along. 

I really didn't. 

Now that 4K is here, (somehow that happened in concert with the death (or at least dying) of physical media), I actually can see the clarity difference, but it looks like it's almost too much.  I mean, a  movie isn't supposed to look like you're watching a super clear digital video.  The footage almost reminds me of HD soap operas. 

But that's what I saw as I watched Kick Ass on a 4k screen.  My first real take on it.  It looked like that hyper-real digital video.  Where was the grain?  The warmth?

Now most techlingers are gonna hassle me for that.  And they're entitled.  I've bitched in a previous piece on the growing tendency of boutiques to release classics on 4k only.  I don't have a 4k player.  They're pricy.  But here we are. I'll leave it at that, I don't need to revisit, but it does require mentioning. 

But people are acting like the DVD is as low in quality as they would complain about VHS when the DVD initially came out.  Please. Really?

Here's an additional gripe, as if I haven't already complained enough. 

They're dropping the supplementals. 

As the films are being upgraded, gaining in picture and audio quality as they make the skip up from blu to 4k, they're losing the bonus materials.  This hasn't escaped me.  Back when DVDs were banging on the door of the home viewing public, there would generally be supplemental material included, often to the degree of requiring a second (occasionally a third, Hot Fuzz, I'm talking to you!) disc.  Quite often, the distributors got so generous with the stuff that the sets would often be a necessary add to a film collection.  Just look at the bonus features on the basic 2 disc DVD releases of The Abyss, Network or All the President's Men.

This was the selling point!

To be fair, sometimes blus will do this.  Particularly in the case of a boutique release.  The local Pittsburgh PM magazine TV segments included on the blu-ray release of Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow are things that will probably be lost to time outside of the producers vaults.  But this is becoming more and more rare.  

There are filmmakers that are adamant about including supplementals on their releases.  Guillermo Del Toro and Christopher Nolan are pretty forward about making it happen.  It's been obvious with the releases of Del Toro's Frankenstein and Nolan's Oppeheimer, that they give a damn about viewer experience.   Unfortunately, I don't think that will be the case going forward.. Streaming is a continued problem in this arena too.  Many times, original studio-level films produced by the likes of Netflix are not getting physical releases. 

Things can get lost to time.  There are examples of famous black and white era films lost due to their age and the lack of copies printed or restored, a la London After Midnight, Hollywood, and The Mountain Eagle.  The number of films being lost over the years from the silent era to the 50's is actually disturbing.  Take a look at this article from The Film Foundation. 

It's appalling.

 In the documentary Adjust Your Tracking, the point is made that many films that saw releases during the VHS era never made the jump to DVD.  This adds another layer to the growing ways that films can be lost.  Then there are films that only saw poor releases on DVD, and were never released again.  What happens to them?  

Are streaming services the savior?  What edition of the film are you seeing?  Is it the right frame rate? Is it color-timed properly?  Is it even the proper aspect ratio?

How long will it remain uploaded to that particular streaming service?

So, all of this has led me to believe that DVDs were an archive of sorts.  Generally a damn fine version of the film itself coupled with 2.0 or 5.1 Dolby sound.  Often a commentary by the filmmaker, stars or even film historians.  Current or archived making-of documentaries.  Interviews.  Trailers and radio spots. Very often, especially in the case of special series like New Line's Infinifilm, Fox's Five Star Series, and others, materials are included that bear some sort of historical connection to the film and it's era.  As they've made the jump to blu and 4k, these supplementals are generally not ported over, and rarely are new ones made, with the exception of disc companies like Criterion, Shout!, Arrow, Kino Lorber and others.  However, these boutiques seem dedicated to genre films from the past, narrowing the possibilities.

Not all films being made these days get disc releases. Streaming's relationship with theatrical has caused this. It's quite disappointing.  It's not a film, but a true crime is being committed in the fact that Mike Flanagan's masterful limited series Midnight Mass isn't getting a physical.  Flanagan has griped about the depletion of home media himself, and perhaps that has something to do with him making the move to Amazon.  

Will that resolve anything?

Not all that long ago, folks were shouting "Cut the Cord!" while dropping their cable company and jumping on board the streaming train.  Just a handful of years later, everyone that creates original content to some extent has decided to create their own streaming service.  Therefore the access to their in-house creations will often be only released on that channel.  No one can afford every streaming service, so this whole movement is arguably narrowing the individual production's audience size due to that factor.  Quite often, I forgot a movie even came out, and end up not seeing it.  The zone is flooded and I can't keep up.  

Let alone be a historian. 

It's easy to lose things in a maelstrom.